Tuesday classwork:

Case study: Power & the Media by Hunter Look

Friday classwork:

Task 2:

"1.) If the power to tell stories and shape narratives is only held by a few, what dangers lie in that? "

There is actually a lot of danger in this because if all this power is held by only a few, these groups could pretty much rub any narrative or any story in the way they want to and would be able to twist it to make the public believe their story and the ideologies they want them to believe. Whereas if there are quite a few people in power to counteract different views and challenge different ideologies this would mean people are able to choose their own ideology and stance on different things portrayed by the media. This makes ideas more spread and gives a wider spread of ideas for people to look at and decide which one they agree with the most and create their own ideology rather than one being given to them/ handed to them. 

"2. Write a paragraph about Merata Mita. Why was her work important and how would you describe her efforts?"

"Merata didn’t focus on developing innovative techniques, like the jump-cut edits created by the French New Wave or the groundbreaking special effects of George Méliès; instead, she tackled a very different kind of challenge. She fought in the cinematic trenches, advocating for accurate representation and documenting the other artists who were fighting for the same goals." Merata was determined and a fighter trying to make a difference in the film industry to get indigenous groups and voices heard on the screen to the public. This was hard for her because she, firstly, was an indigenous director in quite a racist point in history, secondly, she was a woman in a heavily masculated society where anything worth investing in was made or produced by men. She did have some successes, however. These successes would include 2 documentaries, Bastion Point Day 507 (1980) and Patu! (1983), and also Merata was the first Maori woman to write and direct a feature-length film, Mauri (1988), a story about a love triangle that explores cultural tensions in New Zealand. She also directed a nine-part documentary series on one of New Zealand’s most important Maori artists, Ralph Hotere. Merata Mita can be seen as a true foot soldier in the fight to portray Indigenous narratives on the screen.

"3. Why would you argue that it is important for Indi filmmakers, outside of the established institutions, to be creating media / telling stories? "

I would say it is important for indie filmmakers to create media and tell stories because this allows for these people to not only tell their own stories but they also often tell the stories not often told or stories the big conglomerates and media producers are too scared to tell. As well, they also often tell the stories of indigenous groups which is good because it allows these not often represented groups to be represented, and then social issues are so able to change.

Task 4:

1. How are indigenous stories being funded? 

By being seen at film festivals, if at a film festival a big Hollywood company likes your film they will be willing to fund it. This is often the only way to get the funding for an indie film to get recognition or funding. Another way was in June 2017, Canada formed the Indigenous Screen Office to support Indigenous filmmakers.

2. What are some of the stereotypes that were perpetuated in early indigenous portrayals of the native Americans?

- They couldn't aim straight with a gun

- They were weaker than the "white man"

- Savages, and were dehumanized

3. Who is one example of an indigenous voice in NZ who is succeeding at telling stories from an indigenous point of view and garnering the interest of the wider world? 

"Maori filmmaker from New Zealand, Waititi was an indie darling, with films like Two Cars, One Night and Hunt for the Wilderpeople. Then, in 2017, he directed Thor: Ragnarok, netting nearly $853 million. Rumors abound that Waititi has now been tapped to direct a film in the Star Wars franchise. Hollywood took a chance on Waititi and tapped into a unique voice with a narrative that was “undiscovered” by non-Native standards."

4. Where do indigenous films have a platform to be viewed currently?

Sundance in Albuquerque, at an indie film festival.

Thursday classwork:

1. ) A worldview shared by a group of people or culture about how society should work or function.
2. ) 1.)That the church is a very controlling and judgemental place and is not depicted in a good light.      2.) Also, that government can be corrupt and easily be changed by other people in powerful                   positions.
3. ) That black or African people have to protect themselves from white people/ the majority because they can be racist and usually cause damage and problems. Also that in the scenes in "the hood" it is portrayed that black people are poor and don't have much which means they need to be helped by others. Making it seem like they cannot do things for themselves.
4. ) It is a powerful position because it means that you can influence peoples ideologies and therefore how people and even whole cultures think and this could be to get ideas in your favour or how you want things to happen. 
5. ) Women are powerful: the idea of women in power has been a big focus brought through in the media with strong heroines in movies and Tv shows and showing women in areas of power etc... This is flipping the script and showing that men are not the only powerful ones anymore. This has been done in such a way by the media by changing ideologies of people by introducing things like Women being the main actor slowly as time went on so it put this powerful image of women into the viewers' minds and changed their ideologies and ideals. This has also been done with things such as the marvel movie "Captain Marvel" which is based very heavily around women empowerment and this was done by adding a very powerful main character and heroine as well as seeing the fact that it is the woman helping the men the whole time.                                

Monday classwork:

 Youtube Origin Story:

Youtube story:

- How much content is created every day?

     -500 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute worldwide. That's 30,000 hours of video uploaded every hour. And 720,000 hours of video uploaded every day to YouTube.

- Who acquired Youtube and how much was spent?

     -It was originally founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim in February 2005. It was then bought out by Google in 2006 for $1.65 Billion. 

- How was allowing people to monetize channels, a major shift in the industry?

     - It allowed people to earn money for uploading content and has allowed a lot of creators to build lucrative carriers, which has allowed for people to make millions of dollars a month from content.

- How were algorithms used to Youtube's advantage with subscribers? 

     - It allowed for people who get user-generated content based off of what people have watched or searched and gives recommended content so people can view what they like most. This then makes a better overall experience for viewers because it is easier to find the content they want to enjoy rather than scrolling for a long time before finding something they enjoy. 

- Name some of the ways Youtube has changed and added aspects to their channel to increase audience/subscribers? 

    - Youtube has now added paid subscriptions that allow things such as offline viewing, Ad-free services, and other features which are more appealing to viewers, which makes people more attracted to the service and its comfortability.

- Why is content moderation hard for Youtube? 

   - Since there are so many people constantly active on the platform it makes it hard to moderate all of it as well as new content being uploaded every second, it is pretty much impossible to monitor all of it. 

Power and the Media essay

Question:

"To what extent do people today have the power to represent themselves?":

Essay:

We see that power in the media is about who holds the power in constructing ideologies about society, events, and people groups in society. We can look at this a little bit with Stuart hall's Representation theory which pretty much outlines that the stories we tell and the stereotypes we perpetuate, all work together to shape our beliefs about ourselves and group identity. this pretty much means "He who controls the narrative, holds the power". We can also see, however, that people today do have a lot more power to represent themselves than what they did around 10 years ago as well as being less "gullible" or easily persuaded through the media put in front of them.

Stuart Hall and his representation theory however can be broken down further than this, and he tells us that what something is meant to mean or does mean doesn't actually have any meaning or have its own meaning until the media gives it its meaning. This shows that the media literally gives everything they cover their own meaning and how they want to present it. Stuart Hall said, "It has no fixed meaning, no real meaning in the obvious sense until it has been represented." This talks about how unless something is represented it actually has no meaning to it and this is why the media has had so much power in the past because they were the only ones who could represent something and could give that thing the meanings they want. This has however been flipped on itself and does not really have as much grounding anymore because with the increase of and bettering of technology people are now more easily able to represent themselves and even others in the way would like now. Even though people have now got more power to represent themselves there are still things such as the mass media who have such a powerful grasp on us and society and how we view certain topics. Stuart hall thought that the Mass media has such power over how we perceive things. However, this means we, as the audience, can reject certain ideas and ideologies if we do not agree with them. He talks about how the media are actually "attempting to fix a meaning for the majority of society" to keep majority social supremacy. Audiences can only start to combat these stereotypes and break down these social ideologies is by interrogating what the purpose serves. 

Stuart Hall also came up with his reception theory that talks about how "the media generally tends to repeat representations of people or groups of people over and over again" and the effect of these repetitions build up over time. This overtime puts certain representations in the minds of the audiences and slowly makes the masses/ audiences, (us), start to believe in or become indoctrinated on that certain topic. He believes these repeated ideas/representations cultivate our perceptions and change our behavior over time. The way groups are presented over and over again will eventually become the "dominant ideology in society".

Although in the past, we can see that people have pretty much been brainwashed and exposed to whatever the media has wanted them to see, we are starting to 'evolve' and break away from these traditional power structures because audiences are now able to interact with and create media having a say. Because of web 2.0 and the proliferation of the internet we are able to interact (comment, Dm) with big media conglomerates and influence them in the ways media is being created and even distributed. This means that audiences are no longer just consumers but producers as well, the media theorist who came up with this theory clay shirky coined this as the term 'Procumers'. His theory indicated that actually there is no longer any passive audiences band that people want to be able to comment and give feedback and create their own media. This all has become possible due to massive changes and increases in new technology. This could also be linked to the "Fandom theory" proposed by Henry Jenkins in which it explains that fans now act as 'contextual poachers' that take elements that take elements from media texts to create their own culture. The development of this ‘new’ media has accelerated ‘participatory culture’, in which audiences are active and creative participants rather than passive consumers. This pretty much means they create online communities, produce new creative forms, collaborate to solve problems, and shape the flow of media. This is what generates what is thought of as 'collective intelligence'. From this perspective, convergence is a cultural process rather than a technological one. A good example of Jenkin's "Fandom theory" in use would be in the case of a creative film and special effects individual that went by the name of "shamook" was hired by Lucasfilm after he created his own take from a scene in the Mandalorian, which was released on the 12th of November 2019. This is clear proof of how audiences want to be heard by the creators of movies but it also shows how producers, directors, and writers, etc... are wanting to hear from fans as well and are even reaching out in certain circumstances. 

However, although more power has been given to audiences because of technology, the balance of power still greatly rests in the hands of the big 5 media conglomerates. Although they are still controlling the media they are giving their audiences what they want to hear with twists on it so they are still able to show their agenda and what they want audiences to get out of the media in front of them. This can be shown with the women in power movements as well as the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movements and how people are looking for and wanting a more diverse cast, From this perspective, convergence is a cultural process rather than a technological one. We can look at what is called "The Hollywood diversity report" to give an idea of what strides forward and where these companies are looking at going in the future in the sense of these changes. "The Hollywood diversity report" is the only place that “tracks how well women and minorities are represented in four key industry employment categories: lead actors, total cast, writers and directors.” “All four job categories showed progress in 2020, but women and people of color are still underrepresented in critical behind-the-camera jobs”. These are some stats that the Diversity report came out with.

• Women made up just 26% of film writers and just 20.5% of directors. Combined, minority groups were slightly better represented as directors at 25.4%. Just 25.9% of film writers in 2020 were people of color.
•  In 2020, nearly all of the films with a female director also featured a female lead (94.7%). Films directed by minorities had the highest level of cast diversity. And 78.3% of films directed by people of color featured minority leads.
• The most underrepresented groups in all job categories, relative to their presence in the U.S., are Latino, Asian and Native actors, directors, and writers.

Darnell Hunt, dean of the UCLA College Division of Social Sciences and the report’s co-author, had this to say,  “We’ve been systematically looking at these key job categories and comparing the representation of women and people of color to the all-important bottom line for eight years, and it’s encouraging to see skyrocketing numbers this year in front of the camera,”.

Ana-Christina Ramon, the report’s co-author and the director of research and civic engagement for the division of social sciences, said, “Our report finds that women directors and directors of color have overwhelmingly diverse productions,” “However, these films often have smaller budgets than those helmed by male directors and white directors. So, in a year where more diverse productions were made more accessible to larger audiences through streaming services, the contrast is stark as to what types of films have the big budgets. There is clear underinvestment of films made by, written by, and led by women and people of color".

We can also see how big tech companies want us to see what they want in the sense of how they can also block and censor who they want on social media now, An example of this is how, Facebook & Twitter have put their ideologies onto the public and given them a certain perception on the previous president of the U.S.A Donald Trump by, Facebook, banning him for 2 years, and, Twitter, banning him indefinitely. This shows the public the idea that Donald Trump is too outspoken and conservative, Racist, Misogynistic, etc... the list could go on. This is the big tech companies doing the same thing as what the Media have been doing online by putting their ideologies and ideas onto the public over time by bombarding them with repeated info about certain subjects. The media will have also reported on this topic which will have put this idea/ideology into others' heads and cause the public to believe those things about Donald Trump.

In essence, I believe that yes people and the public do have more power and influence in representing themselves, but also I think that the "Big 5", and big tech/media conglomerates have the majority of the balance of power in representation still and are still able to put their ideas and ideologies out there easily without the majority of people noticing, as, most of the population are most likely still passive consumers, and we haven't reached a majority bracket of people being 'prosumers yet.'

Power and the media research

 6 Media companies:

• Comcast 
• Disney 
• 21st Century Fox 
• Viacom
• ATT
• CBS

Noam Chomsky quote:

- “He who controls the media controls the mind of the public.”

How have the ways the big corporations are engaging viewers in news media changed?:

- In news media we have seen that the new way we are engagedby these big corporations is through fear, because of these big corporations feeding us fear we are in-turn intrigued and scared so we listen andtake in what they are saying.

Media regulation essay

  "Changes in society have been reflected by changes in media regulation" Discuss this view. 

We can definitely see a clear change in media regulation being reflected through various changes in society. This is massively affecting the way people are releasing movies/TV shows, to try and not offend the vast majority of people now. In this essay, I will be focusing on some societal issues and controversies circulating around the major cases of censorship as well as the case study on China and how the Media is trying to appease China in order to make an appearance in their box office. Another point I will be going into is the cancel culture and why some TV shows/movies have been put under fire and even canceled because of this new culture being introduced. In New Zealand, the main regulatory bodies are The Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) is the government agency that is currently responsible for the classification of all films, videos, publications, and some video games in New Zealand. It was created by the aforementioned Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993 and is an independent Crown entity. In 2017 we got the latest chief censor of film and literature, David Shank who has been in the role for 4 years and is still in the position. There are also some laws that come in that have changed the way we regulate media now such as the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993 (the Classification Act). Which outlines "A publication can be restricted or banned if it "describes, depicts, expresses, or otherwise deals with" matters such as sex, horror, crime, cruelty or violence and if its unrestricted availability would be harmful to society.". A publication is objectionable (banned) if it promotes or supports, or tends to promote or support, the following activities:

• The sexual exploitation of children
• Sexual violence or coercion
• Torture or extreme violence
• Bestiality
• Sexual conduct involving the body of a dead person
• The use of urine or excrement in association with degrading or sexual conduct

Disney is a great example of "Changes in society have been reflected by changes in media regulation" with movies such as Dumbo and Song of the South. Because of the whole BLM (Black Lives Matter) movements that have been recently addressed, there have been pressures from society for Disney to censor the scenes in Dumbo in which the crows are in. This was due to the way the crows seemed to be presented in the scene as racially stereotyped black people in the time period it was set and the main crow being called Jim, referring to the racial slur "Jim crow". This flared up debates and controversy behind the scene, eventually putting so much pressure on Disney causing them to fully cancel and take the whole scene fully out of the movie when released on the Disney+ streaming service. Even Song of the south has been almost completely pulled from Disney history because it was seen as such a pro-racist movie and encouraged the enslavement of the black community. This sparked many controversies and the movie was never released on DVD, Blu-Ray, or VHS tape or on the Disney+ streaming service. Some people were very disappointed as it was a classic Walt Disney movie, but others are very happy about this because of the fact that many people think it was very racist, even though in actual fact it was not meant in this way and was actually quite a factual reality of what was actually being the thoughts of the time, as well as it being acceptable in those times and reflected the context of the time it was made.

We see censorship in TV broadcasting too, this is being affected by popular opinion and coming across in the form of cancel culture. Because of the whole agenda behind people hating on former president Donald Trump people have used cancel culture to threaten to  "cancel" (a form of boycotting or shunning involving an individual (often a celebrity) who is deemed to have acted or spoken in a questionable or controversial manner.), his show "The apprentice" because many people see him as somebody who comes across as very misogynistic and racist. Because people and their perception of him have used cancel culture and its momentum to "cancel" this show that he created, even though it does not directly portray him and his views. This has also been happening to other shows and movies that seem to portray any views they do not agree with. 

Along with the BLM movement getting so much momentum, there have been so many censorings because anything that even seems remotely offensive is being taken out of movies and shows because it may come across as offensive to certain groups of people and people don't want this because in today's world everyone is soft and can't handle certain topics. The argument against this however is "how far does it go?" and this is true, where does it stop? and how far is too much? Also, who are the people we are giving all this power to? This means it is in whoever is in charge's hands and they can choose what they want and don't want being said and portrayed/ showed. And because of this, we can lose historical truths and people will become uneducated in what happened in the past, possibly causing us to repeat the same problems that others before us have made. The censoring of these movies/ Tv shows can also paint a false picture and this means whoever is censoring our media is almost re-writing the history of our media. My personal views on the topic are that they should put disclaimers at the start of movies informing the viewers if there are any unacceptable views in the film or show, and explain that these things may have been acceptable in those times rather than fully erasing that persons work and the history possibly portrayed in it. 

Society is changing to become more interconnected in light of globalization and the proliferation of the internet, particularly, Web 2.0.  We can see the contrast between Westernised countries and countries like China, in relation to media regulation and censorship of media content. In China censorship in media and how they have a massive hold on what people can and cannot release and show in movies. This is because of the massive restrictions in the Chinese media and how only 34 foreign films are allowed into the Chinese box office which is the second-largest Box Office market behind the USA and film studios are increasingly creating content and regulating content to appease Chinese audiences. This includes making alternate endings, making the Chinese the heroes of the story (for example the movie '2012' where the Chinese created a large ark that saved humanity), and painting the Chinese communist government in a positive light. This means that producers and directors are very cautious about what gets into the final cut, and how they do almost anything to not offend or put China in a bad light because this causes them to lose massive revenue and can cause almost 'bad blood' with the Chinese media regulators making it harder for a possible sequel or another movie from that company to be released in the Chinese theatres again. Another example of this was with North Korea and how they were put in a bad light in the 2014 release of 'The Interview'. This ended up making the North Koreans want to retaliate and cause them to sent terrorist threats etc... causing the producers, directors, and distributors of 'The Interview' to change the release date after being hacked and to "appease" the North Korean "authorities" in a way. 

There are some good things coming out of media being censored, however, because so many kids and people under the age of 18 have either their own device or some form of internet access and this has resulted in the change in parents being the moral gatekeepers of kids are now watching and this has brought in the need for a "role model" of sought to censor what they are watching. 

A good example of media regulation in the New Zealand Tv industry is "13 reasons why" Produced by  Paramount television and distributed on Netflix streaming services on March 31st, 2017. "13 Reasons why is a show that was made to create awareness around the very real nature of suicide and depression and how this can be caused through bullying, rape, and other things talked about in this series. However, the directors of this show have in my stance taken the wrong approach in the way they have shown this in a very graphic and unnecessary way, this is true also for the scene in which Hannah Baker killed herself which showed it in a very detailed manner which I think is inappropriate for any young viewers that most likely would be watching this on Netflix as there is nothing stopping them and most parents don't check on what their kids watch nowadays. This is where the OFLC (the regulatory body in New Zealand ) had to come in and give the show an 18+ rating on it in New Zealand. Because anybody under this should and must be supervised so they have a guardian or someone to be able to explain the heavy concept shown and put in front of them. In other countries, it was given a 15+ rating by the BBFC to ensure that any younger audiences cannot access the Tv show. 

"Manhunt" created by Rockstar games (in 2003) is an example of censorship in the video gaming world and something pulled/banned for good reasoning. Because of the gruesome and terrible gameplay involved with the game, it was banned in New Zealand, UK, Australia, Ireland, and possibly other countries. This I believe was a good decision by the censoring agencies in these countries, because it was a very terrible game that could be damaging to young viewers and even older viewers playing the game and this can dehumanize them and make these things almost seem fine to do anywhere. Especially now that parents no longer are watching and censoring what their kids watch and play on the internet and this ban helps these younger people in the gaming community to not be as exposed to this content. 

We also can see that in more cases regulation is necessary such as the Christchurch mosque shooting where the shooter recorded live on Facebook for thousands of millions of people around the world to watch. This was later taken down off Facebook but was recorded and put up on youtube and other places for others to watch after the event had happened. This was quickly dealt with and censored on all these sites so that people weren't viewing this horrific act. This, in my view as well as the Manhunt game, were good for the censoring agencies to jump on because they are very horrific and terrible content for even adult viewers.

The censoring of media in my view has caused massive problems in society making sure to only show viewers what they want to show them, and in a way "brainwashing" viewers into thinking in this way. This, in my view, is taking away the free will of people to watch and listen to what they want to, almost making the media in a way like a "communist media state". This can cause massive problems within society and over time it will become worse just making certain things normalized and made alright whereas other things are made to be bad and hated/ "canceled" in a sense. This is why in my view media should have certain regulations to prevent the use of illegal uploading of illegal content inappropriate for children or content they should just not be watching, which should actually be monitored by parents but unfortunately is no longer done, but I do disagree with mass regulation and censoring of almost everything and that anybody over a certain age should not have media censored as they should be mature enough to turn off anything they don't want to be viewing or don't think is appropriate.

Power in the form of censorship

Quotes:

•  it was reported that Parler has sued Amazon Web Services and in a statement the company claimed, "AWS's decision to effectively terminate Parler's account is apparently motivated by political animus. AWS is violating Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act in combination with Defendant Twitter. AWS is also breaching it[s] contract with Parler, which requires AWS to provide Parler with a thirty-day notice before terminating service, rather than the less than thirty-hour notice AWS actually provided. Finally, AWS is committing intentional interference with prospective economic advantage given the millions of users expected to sign up in the near future."
  
• "Internet censorship is an incredibly divisive topic right now," said Claire Cole, creative partner at Gamblers Pick.
• "Our study found that more than one in four people believe there should be more censorship on the Internet, while nearly one in three believe there should be less censorship," added Cole. "But despite varying opinions, a majority of people are in agreement that social media platforms should have the right to censor content within their platform(s)."
• "The original Internet was based on the premise that, if you don't like, don't look," explained technology industry consultant Lon Safko, author of The Social Media Bible. "For the 25 years the Internet has been available, all us early adopters to the Internet have always been chocked and pleased. That for one-quarter of a century, our government has not got involved, hasn't interfered with, and hasn’t imposed regulations on the Internet. The only time we saw our government make a historical intervention was charging tax on Internet purchases. Few remember when anything you purchased on the Internet did not include state sales tax."
• "(The social media platforms) have overwhelmingly censored Trump and his administration," added Safko. "Any form of censorship, any form, is unacceptable. Social platform such as Facebook, whose primary business is open communication between its over 2.7 billion members, have a moral and legal responsibility to allow those conversations to transpire, organically. All conversations, all sides of that conversation. And, if the viewer disagrees or is offended by that conversation, then it is their right to simply close the window and walk away."
• "For Facebook, Google, Apple, Twitter and others to deliberately censor, manipulate, and influence an entire U.S. Election to attain their own personal political objectives is not only criminal, but a form of treason. It is clearly stated in the U.S. Constitution. They should be held accountable," Safko 
• "Once again, as a purveyor of information that reaches billions of people on a global scale, those social platforms have a moral and legal responsibility to deliver that information clearly, organically, and without political censorship," noted Safko. "Whatever administration is inaugurated on January 20th, this must become a top national priority. If it doesn't become a priority, then we the people must demand the answer as to why that administration is choosing to ignore treason within our borders."

Question:

- "Should social media companies and big tech have the right or the power to silence voices on their platforms?"

Answer:

I believe it is wrong for social media companies and big tech companies to silence voices on platforms but i believe regulation is needed so illegal content  is not circulated around the internet. This is because this gives them too much power and allows them to change ideologies and peoples ideas etc... It also gives them the ability to change views of people and possibly even gives them power to change the results of things such as rigging elections. This can also possibly give governments more power than they already have because of these social media and big tech companies backing them. However I believe regulation of illegal content is needed, because there are very many times where there are very graphic images that should be regulated towards certain groups e.g. children, but not taken away all together because people should be able to watch what they want in freedom.

The diversity report

 2021 Hollywood Diversity Report

• Of the top 185 films of 2020, more than half were released via streaming platforms only.
• Of the films that had a theatrical release, minority audiences accounted for the bulk of ticket purchases.
• Films with casts that were at least 21% minority enjoyed the highest online viewing ratings among all racial groups in the all-important 18–49 age category.
• Women and people of color gained ground in all job categories tracked by the report: lead actors, total cast, writers, and directors.
• People of color and women are still underrepresented as film writers and directors and typically helmed lower-budget films.

From Jessica Wolf April 22nd, 2021

- "In 2020, Business shutdowns and physical distancing efforts around the world wreaked havoc on box-office revenue and upended long-held film release strategies."

- UCLA College Division of Social Sciences shows that 54.6% of the top films of 2020 were released solely via streaming subscription services.

- More than half of U.S. adults reported that their viewing of film and series content via online subscription services increased during 2020, according to the Motion Picture Association’s latest findings referenced in the report. The global home and mobile entertainment market increased to a record $68 billion over the course of 2020, up 23% from the $55.9 billion in 2019. The U.S. share of this global market stood at nearly 44% in 2020. Latino and Black adults, in particular, consumed online content at higher levels than other groups.

- Many of the big blockbuster films planned for 2020 had their release dates pushed to 2021 and beyond. For films that had a theatrical run in 2020, minorities were major drivers of box-office ticket sales, as with previous years. For six of the top 10 theatrically released films, minorities accounted for the majority of domestic ticket sales during opening weekend. For the seventh top film, minorities accounted for half the ticket sales.

- Women and people of color are still underrepresented in critical behind-the-camera jobs. Women made up just 26% of film writers and just 20.5% of directors. Combined, minority groups were slightly better represented as directors at 25.4%. Just 25.9% of film writers in 2020 were people of color.

- “We’ve been systematically looking at these key job categories and comparing the representation of women and people of color to the all-important bottom line for eight years, and it’s encouraging to see skyrocketing numbers this year in front of the camera,” said Darnell Hunt, dean of the UCLA College Division of Social Sciences and the report’s co-author. “This was a very interesting year to track the nimbleness of industry efforts to deliver content to audiences, who grow increasingly racially diverse each year and who it’s clear were eager to enjoy films in new ways, despite disruptions caused by the pandemic.”

- Among the top 10 streaming films ranked by Asian and Black households, seven had casts that were more than 30% minority. Among the top 10 films ranked by Latino and white households, six had casts that were more than 30% minority.

- In 2020, nearly all of the films with a female director also featured a female lead (94.7%). Films directed by minorities had the highest level of cast diversity. And 78.3% of films directed by people of color featured minority leads.

- “Our report finds that women directors and directors of color have overwhelmingly diverse productions,” said Ana-Christina Ramon, the report’s co-author and the director of research and civic engagement for the division of social sciences. “However, these films often have smaller budgets than those helmed by male directors and white directors. So, in a year where more diverse productions were made more accessible to larger audiences through streaming services, the contrast is stark as to what types of films have the big budgets. There is clear underinvestment of films made by, written by, and led by women and people of color.”

• Women made up 47.8% of lead actors and 41.3% of overall casts in the top films of 2020. Women make up about half the U.S. population
• Among white, Black, and Middle Eastern or Northern African actors, women were significantly underrepresented in the top films of 2020, compared to men from those groups.
• Among Latino, Asian, multiracial, and Native actors, women either approached parity with their male counterparts or exceeded it in films of 2020.
• The most underrepresented groups in all job categories, relative to their presence in the U.S., are Latino, Asian and Native actors, directors, and writers.

Gerbner Cultivation theory

• Media generally tends to repeat representations of people or groups of people over and over again and the effect of those representations on the audience builds up slowly over time.
• Gerbner believes that these repeated representations cultivate or grow our ideas and they change our perceptions and behaviour over time, and they also create an idea in a society of what is mainstream and the dominant ideologies, so if we see more and more representations of people in the media in a positive way as an example, slower over time societies perceptions of that social group may become more positive and that will become the dominant ideology in society.

Livingston & Lunt Media theory notes

• Regulation of all media products is hard  
• Hard to decide what rules there should and shouldn't be 
• Rules at the moment are to stop the audience from harm, to stop the audience from being offended. For protection especially for children and young people.
• Regulators have to try and balance protecting people and offering them choices.
• Regulation is much harder now due to technological advancements, downloading streaming, piracy, youtube, etc... means people can bypass controls like age restrictions. 
• The largeness of the internet makes it impossible to control it.
• powerful companies can avoid regulation because they have the money and power to do so. 

Media regulation essay re-do:

 "Changes in society have been reflected by changes in media regulation" Discuss this view.

We can definitely see a clear change in media regulation being reflected through various changes in society. This is massively affecting the way people are releasing movies/TV shows, to try and not offend the vast majority of people now. In this essay, I will be focusing on some societal issues and controversies circulating around the major cases of censorship as well as the case study on China and how the Media is trying to appease China in order to make an appearance in their box office. Another point I will be going into is the cancel culture and why some TV shows/movies have been put under fire and even canceled because of this new culture being introduced. In New Zealand, the main regulatory bodies are The Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) is the government agency that is currently responsible for the classification of all films, videos, publications, and some video games in New Zealand. It was created by the aforementioned Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993 and is an independent Crown entity. In 2017 we got the latest chief censor of film and literature, David Shank who has been in the role for 4 years and is still in the position. 

Disney is a great example of "Changes in society have been reflected by changes in media regulation" with movies such as Dumbo and Song of the South. Because of the whole BLM (Black Lives Matter) movements that have been recently addressed, there have been pressures from society for Disney to censor the scenes in Dumbo in which the crows are in. This was due to the way the crows seemed to be presented in the scene as racially stereotyped black people in the time period it was set and the main crow being called Jim, referring to the racial slur "Jim crow". This flared up debates and controversy behind the scene, eventually putting so much pressure on Disney causing them to fully cancel and take the whole scene fully out of the movie when released on the Disney+ streaming service. Even Song of the south has been almost completely pulled from Disney history because it was seen as such a pro-racist movie and encouraged the enslavement of the black community. This sparked many controversies and the movie was never released on DVD, Blu-Ray, or VHS tape or on the Disney+ streaming service. Some people were very disappointed as it was a classic Walt Disney movie, but others are very happy about this because of the fact that many people think it was very racist, even though in actual fact it was not meant in this way and was actually quite a factual reality of what was actually being the thoughts of the time, as well as it being acceptable in those times and reflected the context of the time it was made.

We see censorship in TV broadcasting too, this is being affected by popular opinion and coming across in the form of cancel culture. Because of the whole agenda behind people hating on former president Donald Trump people have in essence "canceled" (a form of boycotting or shunning involving an individual (often a celebrity) who is deemed to have acted or spoken in a questionable or controversial manner.), his show "The apprentice" because many people see him as somebody who comes across as very misogynistic and racist. Because people and their perception of him have used cancel culture and its momentum to "cancel" this show that he created, even though it does not directly portray him and his views. This has also been happening to other shows and movies that seem to portray any views they do not agree with. 

Along with the BLM movement getting so much momentum, there have been so many censorings because anything that even seems remotely offensive is being taken out of movies and shows because it may come across as offensive to certain groups of people and people don't want this because in today's world everyone is soft and can't handle certain topics. The argument against this however is "how far does it go?" and this is true, where does it stop? and how far is too much? Also, who are the people we are giving all this power to? This means it is in whoever is in charge's hands and they can choose what they want and don't want being said and portrayed/ showed. And because of this, we can lose historical truths and people will become uneducated in what happened in the past, possibly causing us to repeat the same problems that others before us have made. The censoring of these movies/ Tv shows can also paint a false picture and this means whoever is censoring our media is almost re-writing the history of our media. My personal views on the topic are that they should put disclaimers at the start of movies informing the viewers if there are any unacceptable views in the film or show, and explain that these things may have been acceptable in those times rather than fully erasing that persons work and the history possibly portrayed in it. 

Another example of media regulation in the extreme is the whole China censorship in media and how they have a massive hold on what people can and cannot release and show in movies. This is because of the massive restrictions in the Chinese media and how only 34 foreign films are allowed into the Chinese box office (2nd largest box office earnings behind the USA). This means that producers and directors are very cautious about what gets into the final cut, and how they do almost anything to not offend or put China in a bad light because this causes them to lose massive revenue and can cause almost 'bad blood' with the Chinese media regulators making it harder for a possible sequel or another movie from that company to be released in the Chinese theatres again. Another example of this was with North Korea and how they were put in a bad light in the 2014 release of 'The Interview'. This ended up making the North Koreans want to retaliate and cause them to sent terrorist threats etc... causing the producers, directors, and distributors of 'The Interview' to change the release date after being hacked and to "appease" the North Korean "authorities" in a way. 

There are some good things coming out of media being censored, however, because so many kids and people under the age of 18 have either their own device or some form of internet access and this has resulted in the change in parents being the moral gatekeepers of kids are now watching and this has brought in the need for a "role model" of sought to censor what they are watching. 

A good example of media regulation in the New Zealand Tv industry is "13 reasons why". "13 Reasons why is a show that was made to create awareness around the very real nature of suicide and depression and how this can be caused through bullying, rape, and other things talked about in this series. However, the directors of this show have in my stance taken the wrong approach in the way they have shown this in a very graphic and unnecessary way, this is true also for the scene in which Hannah Baker killed herself which showed it in a very detailed manner which I think is inappropriate for any young viewers that most likely would be watching this on Netflix as there is nothing stopping them and most parents don't check on what their kids watch nowadays. This is where the OFLC (the regulatory body in New Zealand ) had to come in and give the show an 18+ rating on it in New Zealand. Because anybody under this should and must be supervised so they have a guardian or someone to be able to explain the heavy concept shown and put in front of them. In other countries, it was given a 15+ rating by the BBFC to ensure that any younger audiences cannot access the Tv show. 

"Manhunt" is an example of censorship in the video gaming world and something pulled/banned for good reasoning. Because of the gruesome and terrible gameplay involved with the game, it was banned in New Zealand, UK, Australia, Ireland, and possibly other countries. This I believe was a good decision by the censoring agencies in these countries, because it was a very terrible game that could be damaging to young viewers and even older viewers playing the game and this can dehumanize them and make these things almost seem fine to do anywhere. Especially now that parents no longer are watching and censoring what their kids watch and play on the internet and this ban helps these younger people in the gaming community to not be as exposed to this content. 

We also can see that in more cases regulation is necessary such as the Christchurch mosque shooting where the shooter recorded live on Facebook for thousands of millions of people around the world to watch. This was later taken down off Facebook but was recorded and put up on youtube and other places for others to watch after the event had happened. This was quickly dealt with and censored on all these sites so that people weren't viewing this horrific act. This in my view as well as the Manhunt game were good for the censoring agencies to jump on because they are very horrific and terrible content for even adult viewers.

The censoring of media in my view has caused massive problems in society making sure to only show viewers what they want to show them, and in a way "brainwashing" viewers into thinking in this way. This, in my view, is taking away the free will of people to watch and listen to what they want to, almost making the media in a way like a "communist media state". This can cause massive problems within society and over time it will become worse just making certain things normalized and made alright whereas other things are made to be bad and hated/ "canceled" in a sense. This is why in my view media should have certain regulations to prevent the use of illegal uploading of illegal content inappropriate for children or content they should just not be watching, which should actually be monitored by parents but unfortunately is no longer done, but I do disagree with mass regulation and censoring of almost everything and that anybody over a certain age should not have media censored as they should be mature enough to turn off anything they don't want to be viewing or don't think is appropriate.

Media Ecology Essay

Media Ecology essay:

• Question: "The relationship between media & audiences is changing drastically" Discuss.

"The relationship between media & audiences is changing drastically" In my view, I agree with this statement in a lot of senses and can be backed by the media ecology theory. This aims to describe ways in which diverse media environments shape today's society and our everyday lives. And the central premise of the theory is that the communication content doesn't exert nearly as much influence as the medium of communication itself does. 

We see media theorist McLuhan talk about how the media and the medium, which is the media being the message, and the medium is the technology used to show it. He went on to talk about how our environment inevitably affects how we interact with media and their perceptions of it. An example of this view of our environment affecting how we view and perceive our media is COVID-19 and the lockdowns. These lockdowns have massively changed our viewing habits, as people have become accustomed to watching everything online and streaming movies on SVOD rather than going to the theatre and watching a movie in the traditional way. In the 2020 lockdowns, we also saw a massive increase in people paying for SVOD subscriptions with there even being 4 new SVOD platforms starting up including, Apple TV, HBO Max, Peacock, and the massively successful Disney +. Some stats on how many people are paying for paid SVOD subscriptions since the start of COVID-19:

• Netflix = 208 million
• Disney + = 103.6 million
• Amazon Prime Video = 200 million
• Apple Tv = 40 million 
• HBO Max = 63.9 million 

This massive increase in people paying for subscriptions of SVOD services has also produced a surge in content spending for production companies to keep viewers with the latest content. In 2020, a record-breaking $220.2 billion was spent on making and acquiring new featuring films and Tv programming- That is a 16.5% increase compared to production spending in 2019. unsurprisingly, over 2/3rds of global spending came from the U.S. and Canada.

• U.S. & Canada = $149.3 billion
• Europe = $32.6 Billion 
• Asia = $27.7

With all these massive changes and additions to movie budgets etc... we can also see this with Tv budgets continuing to soar and get higher and higher. In 2020 a budget for the average Tv series was around $59.6 million which is a 16.5% increase year-over-year. Whereas the budget for the most expensive show last year was $200 million for wandavision. As series budgets rise, the line between film and Tv is getting more and more blurred with other series such as Loki and the Mandalorian as well. 

Also a big thing now because of the big companies such as Disney adding their own streaming services and a massive increase in home viewing you can see they are now doing simultaneous releases with the theatres to maximize profits and get the most out of their films. However, this has affected the box office numbers and therefore possibly actors' salaries as well. One example of this was with Scarlet Johanson and how she is suing Disney for releasing Black widow on Disney + premium access at the same time as box office release affecting her salary which was dependant on box office numbers. And another thing. We can see with the increase in SVOD services that there is a massive increase in fragmentation and a breakdown of the "nuclear family" no longer sitting down and watching TV/movies together anymore, rather they are watching on multiple devices at the same time watching different things. and this could allow us to even go into how the media is the moderators now rather than parents because it is now so easy to access the internet etc... without parental consent and we also see families not sitting down watching Tv at night with each other so the parents cant moderate the things their kids are viewing and taking in.

"Audiences becoming producers" Movie and Tv studios have started to seriously listen to their audiences/ viewers more and even getting audiences to help or change parts of movies because of the movement to get the best content to viewers. This links to Shirky's "end of audience theory" which pretty much says, audiences have changed due to the internet (web 2.0) and the ability for audiences to create their own content at home thanks to the lower cost of technology. Audiences are no longer just consumers but also producers, which shirky coined the phrase "prosumers". This could also be connected to Jenkin's "Fandom Theory" in how a fan made a different scene in addition to one of the scenes in "The Mandalorian" to replace it with something they thought suited the episode more than what Lucasfilm/ Disney did. This ended up in Lucasfilm/ Disney seeing his video/ work and hired him.

Media Ecology Essay plan

 Question:

"The relationship between media & audiences is changing drastically" Discuss.

I agree

Plan:

Intro: "The relationship between media & audiences is changing drastically" In my view, I believe this statement is true in a lot of senses and can be backed by the media ecology theory which aims to describe ways in which diverse media environments shape today's society and our everyday lives. And the central premise of the theory is that the communication content doesn't exert nearly as much influence as the medium of communication itself does. 

• Mc Luhan who worked on media theory concluded that media is what the message is and that the medium is the technology used to get this message across. 
• This could show that our environment inevitably affects how we would interact with media and our perceptions of it. COVID-19 is an example of this and how our environment (lockdown) has affected how we perceive and now choose to view media.
• Stats on the increase of subscription video on demand (SVOD) and decrease in the use of theatres. Also mention/ talk about the surge in content spending, and how TV budgets have continued to soar. 
• Disney and other production companies now doing simultaneous releases on SVOD and in theatres. This has affected box office numbers. Mention Scarlet Johanson and how she is suing Disney for releasing Black widow on Disney + premium access at the same time as box office release affecting her salary which was dependant on box office numbers.
• Fragmentation has a big effect on this as well, with the "nuclear family" no longer sitting down and watching TV/movies together anymore, rather they are watching on multiple devices at the same time watching different things. Mention the stats, examples, etc... 
• Piracy can be included as well because of the increase in piracy and different movie piracy sites being created, there is an increase in people watching pirated films rather than watching at the cinemas and on SVOD especially with a big increase during lockdowns. This is contributing to SVOD and theatres losing out on quite a bit of money especially theatres because of piracy causing viewers to enjoy watching from home and it being much cheaper or even free a lot of the time and can be easier waiting a little longer for it to release online than going to the original release in cinemas. 
• "Audiences becoming producers" Movie and Tv studios have started to seriously listen to their audiences/ viewers more and even getting audiences to help or change parts of movies because of the movement to get the best content to viewers.
• Henry Jenkins "Fandom Theory" One of the ways in which "The relationship between media & audiences is changing drastically" Discuss. is summed up in Jenkins fandom theory. Stranger things is an example.
• Another thing to add to Jenkin's "Fandom Theory" is how a fan made a different scene in addition to one of the scenes in "The Mandalorian" to replace it with something they thought suited the episode more than what Lucasfilm/ Disney did. This ended up in Lucasfilm/ Disney seeing his video/ work and hired him. Add in when the Mandalorian came out, Creator, find out a bit more information to add to the essay.
• We can see/ notice that the line between Tv & movies is blurring more and more. Examples that can be used are "The Mandalorian", "Loki" series, and even the "Wandavision" series as well.
• Shirky's "end of audience theory" pretty much says, audiences have changed due to the internet (web 2.0) and the ability for audiences to create their own content at home thanks to the lower cost of technology. Audiences are no longer just consumers but also producers, which shirky coined the phrase "prosumers".
• There are no longer any passive audiences due to new technology.
• People want to be able to comment & give feedback & interact with the media they are taking in.

Link to the fanmade version of "The Mandalorian":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrHXA2cSpNU

Advanced portfolio: CCR

 For our Advanced portfolio this year we had to work on a Music Video, Digipak, and Social media page for our given artist which was chosen to be Demi Lovato.

Our products actually represent quite a few social issues as well as 1 or 2 social groups. Because of the song we chose, it represents the issues of depression and drug abuse in hopes that it can help others not to go through those things. It talks about how the artist struggled with substance abuse and how she let down her mum and she was no longer able to talk to her. This outlines the problems that drugs and harmful substances can cause for people and their mental health as well as other various problems. Along with social issues, there are social groups being represented not necessarily through the music video but more through Demi Lovato herself and her Instagram which she is very outspoken on many social issues and groups, and at the moment she is talking about the homosexual community and trying to help them, she is doing this through numerous posts in her Instagram and bringing people in to talk about the issues around what is happening in the homosexual community.

I think the different elements of my production all work together to create a good sense of branding for (stand-in) Demi Lovato. I used colors such as blues and purples to give a cold deep and lonely feel just like how the music portrays that image of her as well. Because of Demi Lovato and how she is outspoken for the homosexual community, I also added a sense of this to the social media page in order to show an idea of how she brands herself as well as how we are trying to brand her. Also with our colors such as blues and purples, there were meant to be slightly brighter warmer colors that were meant to slightly almost shine through because the idea of the music video is that she overcomes rather than just being sad and kind of in sorts gets over it so the pinks, etc... were meant to symbolize that however, i did not add this feature in as I thought it would be nice to leave the colors the same way because some people don't always just make breakthroughs straight away and I wanted it to look more realistic in sorts and a bit more closer to some of those who are struggling with these sorts of issues.

I feel as though because of the big uproars in how we need to help with peoples mental health and other things going on recently I agree that most people would engage with our music video and show support around a social issue that is taking place in others all around the world so they would engage out of possibly being able to relate in a sense. Also, people will be able to engage with the whole homosexual awareness that is coming from Demi Lovato and we have tried to add slightly to it because there are a lot of people who are trying to stand up for this social group because they feel they have been wrongly treated. because it shows support this means people will engage with her products more especially those who support it or are a part of this social group.

To engage with the viewers we had to choose a target audience, the genre we chose gives us a group of around about 15-40-year-olds that are female. The song is slow in some places and has a melodic tune but is also quite touching, and to really grasp the concept I feel that the person has to be a bit more in touch with their feelings, something women are usually known for. I tried to keep the design of my digipak, not ‘girly’ but so that you could definitely say that it had more of a feminine touch with the colors and fonts. This was carried through in all the different elements both seen in the music video and my social media. On the Instagram page, there are different links that you can click on to take you to the music video on Vimeo, because of different copyright regulations, etc we aren't able to upload it anywhere else limiting the realism of the song actually being produced. Even though this may have restricted what we were able to post I still tried to incorporate a lot of different interactive hashtags and carried the slogan ‘#WOPS’ throughout my post adding continuity to the images and creating hype because of the acronym of ‘What Other People Say'.

Since doing the music video first, we had to learn a lot about the different types of conventions that were usually seen in a video from mid-tempo pop. A lot of them had a storytelling/ narrative theme where the audience was to follow along with the message being portrayed rather than just singing or seeing different images that had little connection to the song or the meaning behind the lyrics. Another convention was how nearly every music video from every genre had lip-syncing. In my opinion, a music video, depending on the way it is being made, can't be a music video without singing or some sort of lip-syncing. To make it look right we had to watch different tutorials from Youtube to learn how to overlay the original song over the lip-syncing in editing without hearing the original audio and making it look realistic. In different videos it had tips and tricks such as always getting your actor or actress to actually sing the song when you are filming and just cut it out later, it makes it easier to match up the mouth movements with the different words in the song. Having your audio always on is another helpful bit that we forgot at times thinking that we wouldn't need audio but then when we got to editing we didn't know what part they were singing. 

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed doing all the aspects of this project, all the filming, editing, and designing of the digipak and I think it turned out really well.